MCD BIO 138
Developmental Biology
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: Life Sciences 3, 4, and 23L, or 7A, 7B, 7C, 23L, and 107. Development of understanding of fundamental molecular mechanisms and cellular activities guiding formation of complex organism from single fertilized egg. Development of model organisms to understand conserved nature of developmental decisions across animal kingdom, distinct features that lead to diversification of animal shape and form during evolution. Origin and roles of stem and progenitor cells in development and maintenance of specific organ systems. Roles of cell shape change, cell death, proliferation, and migration in generating shape of embryo, organs, and tissues. Mechanisms by which cells become different from and communicate with one another to coordinate their activities in time and space in embryo. Special emphasis on experimental approaches used to address these fundamental questions that determine how organized tissues and organs are formed and maintained throughout life of organism. Letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2024 - Chen was the BEST professor to take this class with. Her class gave us over 6% extra credit -- extra credit that was merely based on completion (and tbh I didn't even need this extra credit at the end of the day). The only homework due were reports based on the papers she assigned, but the TA discussion slides posted explained these papers so well that the reports were a breeze (and graded very generously too since I got 100% on most). Reports were also very short -- only 2-3 questions/1-2 pages double-spaced total at most. Exams were all take-home though timed (midterms were 2 hours, final was 3 hours). The exams were a bit of a time crunch but consisted of a good balance of 50% MCQ, 30% T/F, and 20% FRQ. The exams were a bit tricky at times since the answers to choose from all seemed quite plausible (and spanned multiple units even within one question), so it's important to have notes to easily refer to during the exam to. I will note that her lectures are not mandatory to attend but did have extra credit iClicker (not location-based) every so often at the very beginning of the lecture. Her lectures also weren't that beneficial to attend IMO -- she answers questions very wordily and all lectures were recorded -- everything I studied was from the notes she posted (a life-saver) and all slideshows (good for visual representations of what we learned). Overall, I loved taking this class with Chen and recommend it again! She is so understanding of our busy student life, which is reflected in the online exam format and generous extra credit.
Fall 2024 - Chen was the BEST professor to take this class with. Her class gave us over 6% extra credit -- extra credit that was merely based on completion (and tbh I didn't even need this extra credit at the end of the day). The only homework due were reports based on the papers she assigned, but the TA discussion slides posted explained these papers so well that the reports were a breeze (and graded very generously too since I got 100% on most). Reports were also very short -- only 2-3 questions/1-2 pages double-spaced total at most. Exams were all take-home though timed (midterms were 2 hours, final was 3 hours). The exams were a bit of a time crunch but consisted of a good balance of 50% MCQ, 30% T/F, and 20% FRQ. The exams were a bit tricky at times since the answers to choose from all seemed quite plausible (and spanned multiple units even within one question), so it's important to have notes to easily refer to during the exam to. I will note that her lectures are not mandatory to attend but did have extra credit iClicker (not location-based) every so often at the very beginning of the lecture. Her lectures also weren't that beneficial to attend IMO -- she answers questions very wordily and all lectures were recorded -- everything I studied was from the notes she posted (a life-saver) and all slideshows (good for visual representations of what we learned). Overall, I loved taking this class with Chen and recommend it again! She is so understanding of our busy student life, which is reflected in the online exam format and generous extra credit.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - This class is HARD. You learn soooo much material with so many intricate details about signaling pathways and processes and it's super difficult to keep track of everything and put it together into one cohesive picture. The papers every week were also really challenging to get through and I found the weekly paper quizzes to be a bit too specific (reading the paper one time through is not enough to do well haha). The exams were intense... all multiple choice but very detail oriented and you have to have a pretty deep understanding to answer the questions well. There is just soooo much memorization. Professor Hartenstein is such a sweet and gentle person - he is very helpful and receptive to student concerns and he definitely makes this class better - but the nature of the class is just that it's gonna be difficult regardless of which professor you take it with.
Winter 2022 - This class is HARD. You learn soooo much material with so many intricate details about signaling pathways and processes and it's super difficult to keep track of everything and put it together into one cohesive picture. The papers every week were also really challenging to get through and I found the weekly paper quizzes to be a bit too specific (reading the paper one time through is not enough to do well haha). The exams were intense... all multiple choice but very detail oriented and you have to have a pretty deep understanding to answer the questions well. There is just soooo much memorization. Professor Hartenstein is such a sweet and gentle person - he is very helpful and receptive to student concerns and he definitely makes this class better - but the nature of the class is just that it's gonna be difficult regardless of which professor you take it with.
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Most Helpful Review
MCDB 138 W14 ***DOES NOT GRADE ON A CURVE*** Professor Lee shows a lot of enthusiasm for the subject and has a lot of knowledge as well. She goes over a lot of classic/old school experiments in the course and at some point midway through the course the experiments get pretty repetitive (read: EXTREMELY repetitive). Exams are all free response questions. Most are "design an experiment" and only a couple are straight up recall. My advice is to study HOW to set up experiments for different concepts more so than studying the details of the concepts. I think people understood this since the average for the first exam was 77% and the average for the second exam was 91%. There is no curve for this class (or any of her classes apparently). With that being said, there are a lot of extra credit points given during the exams. A lot of extra credit. Overall, great professor. I absolutely bombed the first exam and averaged 95% on the next two exams. After the first exam, I basically decided to focus on experiments of each concept rather than the concept itself. Do this for all three exams and you will be fine.
MCDB 138 W14 ***DOES NOT GRADE ON A CURVE*** Professor Lee shows a lot of enthusiasm for the subject and has a lot of knowledge as well. She goes over a lot of classic/old school experiments in the course and at some point midway through the course the experiments get pretty repetitive (read: EXTREMELY repetitive). Exams are all free response questions. Most are "design an experiment" and only a couple are straight up recall. My advice is to study HOW to set up experiments for different concepts more so than studying the details of the concepts. I think people understood this since the average for the first exam was 77% and the average for the second exam was 91%. There is no curve for this class (or any of her classes apparently). With that being said, there are a lot of extra credit points given during the exams. A lot of extra credit. Overall, great professor. I absolutely bombed the first exam and averaged 95% on the next two exams. After the first exam, I basically decided to focus on experiments of each concept rather than the concept itself. Do this for all three exams and you will be fine.
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